Decision Context, Associative Learning and Preference Formation in Risky Choic

Despite all the differences offered in theories of utility formation and decisions from experience/ descriptions, they share common assumption – decision makers have stable and coherent preferences, informed by consistent use of psychological strategy/processing (computational or sampling) that guide their choices between alternatives varying in risk and reward. In contrast, we argue for the non-existence of stable risk preferences; we propose that risk preferences are constructed dynamically based on strategy selection as a reinforcement-learning model. Accordingly, we found that decision context and associative learning predict strategy selection and govern risky preferences; rather having fixed preferences for risk, people select decision strategies from current context and learn to select decision strategies that are most successful (in terms of effort and reward) for a given context

How Uncertainty and Moral Utilitarian Ratios Predict Rationality

Moral dilemmas involving a choice between saving the lives of 1 versus 5 have long been debated through utilitarian (e.g., Bentham, 1789) and deontological theories of moral choice (Kant, 1965). According to Greene et al.’s (2001) dual process moral utilitarian theory, moral involvement predicts utilitarian rationality in decision-making. Accordingly, Greene et al. proposed that emotional activations interfere with cognitive (rational) decision mechanisms. For example, personal involvement in moral scenarios (push a stranger) induces irrationality and decision time in choice. However, more psychological factors (e.g., utility ratios) have been found to predict rationality in personal dilemmas (Nakamura, 2012). Furthermore, theorists (Kusev et al. 2016) argued that elimination of moral uncertainty also predicts utilitarian responses. In one experiment we aimed to explore how (and whether) utility ratios, uncertainty, type of dilemma and involvement predict moral utilitarian choice. The results revealed that eliminated uncertainty and high utility ratios induced utilitarian (rational) decision preferences

Decision Complexity and Consistency in Choice Under Risk

A long history of research has explored the complexity and management of risky environments (e.g., Johnson & Bruce, 1994; Slovic, 2000). However, very little research explored the psychological factors (e.g., readiness, context, and psychological reactions to normative rules) underlying this complexity. Typically the content of psychological readiness, as proposed in sport and work psychology, is based on physical and emotional parameters. In contrast, this research shows the cognitive mechanism underlying psychological readiness (sensitivity to context, computational rationality). In order to maintain the effectiveness of complex risky systems, managers are expected to implement (i) relevant knowledge and experience, and (ii) pre-designed normative rules and therefore to maintain accuracy in decision outputs/ performance. Accordingly, in one experiment we explored the influence of context, content, and computational rationality on decision consistency and psychological readiness

The Influence of Associative Learning on Moral Decision-Making

Moral decision- making involving a trade-off between the lives of humans in hypothetical moral dilemmas is a widely-researched topic in psychology. Much research has focused on influences on utilitarian moral decision-making such as personal involvement (Greene et al., 2001), uncertainty (Kusev et al. 2016), and the numbers of people’s lives involved (Nakamura, 2012). However, despite the vast amount of literature claiming that moral behaviour is learned (Mikhail, 2007), no experimental research has investigated how moral decision-making is influenced by associative learning. Therefore, the present research implemented moral rules within an associative learning task, and revealed that moral rules (i) can be learned (ii), are transferred and used in moral decision-making tasks without feedback. The results also revealed that learning accuracy, but not transfer accuracy is influenced by the moral decision- making frame (save/not-save). Based on these findings, future research should investigate whether learned rules or normative utilitarian rules dominate the decision-making proces

The Influence of Decision Context and Comparability on Judgements of Gain and Loss

Whether positive and negative affects exist independently (Cacioppo & Berntson, 1994) or coexist (Russel, 1980) has been heavily debated in psychological research. Recent work by McGraw et al. (2010) has supported the view of independent positive and negative utilitarian decision functions. Specifically that gain and loss expected judgements, in response to a mixed monetary gamble, are processed in isolation (bipolar scales) and do not induce decision biases. However, when the judgement options are forced into the same contextual space (unipolar scales), prompting direct comparisons, they induce loss-averse judgements. In contrast, we propose an alternative explanation based on decision- content comparability. Specifically, comparable decision attributes fuel the gain and loss comparisons (inducing loss averse judgements). Moreover, our results showed that facilitating decision content comparability (DCC) (monetary gamble-monetary worth evaluation) produces loss aversion regardless of whether gains and losses are considered in isolation. Accordingly, impeding DDC produces a decline in loss aversion

The Influence of Decision Content Comparability on Gain Loss Asymmetry

Whether positive and negative affects exist independently (Cacioppo & Berntson, 1994) or coexist (Russel, 1980) has been heavily debated in psychological research. Recent work by McGraw et al. (2010) has supported the view of independent positive and negative utilitarian decision functions. Specifically that gain and loss expected judgements, in response to a mixed monetary gamble, are processed in isolation (bipolar scales) and do not induce decision biases. However, when the judgement options are forced into the same contextual space (unipolar scales), prompting direct comparisons, they induce loss-averse judgements. In contrast, we propose an alternative explanation based on decision- content comparability. Specifically, comparable decision attributes fuel the gain and loss comparisons (inducing loss averse judgements). Moreover, our results showed that facilitating decision content comparability (DCC) (monetary gamble-monetary worth evaluation) produces loss aversion regardless of whether gains and losses are considered in isolation. Accordingly, impeding DDC produces a decline in loss aversion

Perspective-Taking Accessibility (and Not the Type of Psychological Processing) Informs People’s Utilitarian Moral Judgments

According to Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT; Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006) complex decisions options should be processed unconsciously (during a distraction period) rather than consciously, if one wants to make the optimal choice. Some authors (e.g., Ham & van den Bos, 2010) have applied this theory to moral decision-making and found that people are more utilitarian in response to the footbridge dilemma when they process the decision-making information unconsciously as opposed to consciously. However, throughout the moral decision-making literature, no authors have considered the importance of full perspective- taking (PT) accessibility (having access to multiple perspectives in moral scenarios) on people’s moral choices and judgments. Accordingly, we found that presenting full PT accessibility to participants resulted in consistent utilitarian judgments regardless of the type of psychological processing employed. Therefore, we argue that unbiased and accessible information is more important in producing normative decisions than the way in which people process information

Save the Best for First: First Attribute Heuristic in Consumer Choice

We propose a novel decision-making mechanism (the First Attribute Heuristic [FAH]), where people’s preferences are determined by binary comparison on the first con- textually available attribute. Accordingly, we argue that human deci- sion-makers prefer the option with the dominant value on the first contextually available attribute. In two experiments, we explore the influence of FAH and the attribute chosen by the participants as more important (e.g., brightness or warranty) on their willingness to pay (WTP) for TVs A and B. We found that only when the attribute cho- sen as more important is also the first contextually available attri- bute, participants paid more money for the TV with dominant value on that attribute (experiment one). Moreover, in experiment two, we introduced a new task, where the first contextually available attribute is nonnumerical (ethics of the TV manufacturer: ethical or unethical manufacturer), task irrelevant (the decision attributes are brightness and warranty), and with decision consequences (endorsing an ethi- cal or unethical manufacturer). Accordingly, the results revealed that only FAH influenced participants’ WTP judgements for TVs

The cognitive economy: The probabilistic turn in psychology and human cognition

According to the foundations of economic theory, agents have stable and coherent “global” preferences that guide their choices among alternatives. However, people are constrained by information-processing and memory limitations and hence have a propensity to avoid cognitive load. We propose that this in turn will encourage them to respond to “local” preferences and goals influenced by context and memory representations

How Contextual Similarity And Presence Influence The Detection Rates In A Choice Blindness Task

Choice Blindness (CB) is a decision-making phenomenon, revealing that human respondents fail to notice the mismatch between what they choose and what that they actually get (Johansson et al., 2005). Traditional attempts to explain the CB phenomenon are derived from the classical theories of decision-making, assuming reasoning errors on the part of the decision agents. In this study, we investigated the CB paradigm highlighting the importance of contextual and behavioural factors for preference formation and elicitation. Apart from making a theoretical contribution to the study of CB, we offer a methodological extension by introducing response times. Our results show that psychological factors such as level of similarity between the stimuli and physical presence of another individual during the decision-making process influence detection rates and decision-making time. These findings are discussed in light of the recently proposed simplicity framework and cognitive effort/ engagement in decision-making (Kusev & van Schaik, 2013)